ABC Owned Television Stations

ABC Owned Television Stations’ relatively new data journalism unit, headed by John Kelly, has quickly come into its own via the massive twin stories of the election and the pandemic. The team’s work has already impacted equity issues at the polls and made inroads with a younger audience that Kelly says “particularly values evidence, hard facts and data that they can easily consume and share with one another.”

Executives and editors from the BBC, CNN, ABC Owned Stations and Gray Television will look at how their storytelling on digital platforms will change in 2021 amid ongoing remote production and emerging technology at TVNewsCheck’s virtual NewsTECHForum on Dec. 16. Register here.

The ABC Owned Television Stations explore the Black experience in an unprecedented collaboration that unleashes the power of collaboration to break new ground in local TV news.

Technology executives from ABC News, NBCU Owned Stations, ABC Owned Television Stations and Hearst Television will explore how pandemic-necessitated at-home production has overhauled the industry’s thinking at TVNewsCheck’s virtual TV2025 event in October. Register here.

ABC Owned Television Stations had begun moving many of its workflows into the cloud over a year before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, making for a faster and smoother transition once remote workflows became necessary. Tish Graham, the group’s VP of OTV technology, says the current crisis will “absolutely” speed up the industry’s transition to IP and the cloud.

The multiplatform push to support local businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic kicks off with a call-to-action PSA, launching immersive webpages across all eight stations, and building a community-driven social media activation movement.

The pandemic puts a new ABC initiative to the test finding stories “hiding in plain sight” using data journalism. “We gather the data, we analyze the data and we put it in the hands of the local stations to go do a uniquely local story,” John Kelly says.

A half-hour linear broadcast premiere of Check In rated No. 1 in all key demos in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Houston

New apps from ABC News Live debut on Fire TV and Android TV platforms with an update coming to the Roku platform and Apple TV apps. The ABC Owned Television Stations are also introducing market-specific apps on Fire TV, Android TV, the Roku platform and Apple TV.

Localish has gone nationalish. The digital brand, introduced about 18 months ago by the ABC-owned stations, has a great new platform: broadcast television! Localish’s feel-good and lifestyle stories, while designed for digital platforms, have always appeared on station newscasts as well. But on Feb. 17, a new linear Localish channel made its debut in all eight ABC markets, available to an estimated 14 million viewers on the stations’ over-the-air subchannels.

Dan Adams, assumes the newly created role of vice president of finance and business planning for ABC Owned Television Stations, effective in March.

The digital-first lifestyle brand will add linear distribution on Feb. 17 as the multicast network Live Well Television is rebranded as Localish.

The winners of TVNewsCheck’s Social Media Excellence Awards demonstrate some of the many ways the still-emerging medium can be used to benefit both viewers and the stations. L-r: TVNewsCheck’s Michael Depp; Social News Desk’s Kim Wilson; ABC Owned Television Stations’ Michael Koenigs; WJLA’s Caroline Patrickis; KABC’s Hanna Maxfield; and KKYV’s Lindsey Grewe and Tony Keith. (Photo: Wendy Moger-Bross)

ABC’s owned stations air the special High School Musical: The Musical: The Series: The Special starting Dec. 14. High School Musical: The Musical: The Series is streaming on Disney+. The special airs on Disney+ Dec. 20. WTVD Raleigh, KFSN Fresno and KABC Los Angeles air the special Dec. 14. WPVI Philadelphia and KGO San Francisco air it Dec. 25. On Dec. 28, it goes on KTRK Houston, WLS Chicago and WABC New York.

ABC Owned Television Stations has won 2019’s Innovator Award, the top honor in TVNewsCheck’s Social Media Excellence Awards, for its Localish collective of highly engaging digital shorts. One secret: an indispensible “wow” moment in every video.

How a new generation of digital storytellers is changing the rules at ABC’s O&Os. The Community Journalism Program embeds reporters in neighborhoods to provide a more nuanced view of community life than “breaking news” coverage allows.

The station group is creating a new team that will make data journalism a mainstream, daily core of its eight newsrooms, staffed by a group of next-generation data journalists and led by newly hired director of data journalism, John Kelly, formerly of USA Today.

Tish Graham is the first woman to lead technology at a television station group. Her efforts to revamp ABC’s stations for a multiplatform world through IP, the cloud and more are at the forefront of where the industry at large is heading. She will receive TVNewsCheck’s 2019 Women in Technology Leadership Award.

She’s being celebrated with TVNewsCheck’s annual Women in Technology Leadership Award in recognition of her leadership in overhauling technology at the ABC Owned Television Stations Group. Her efforts have helped the company adapt to a multiplatform future and changing economic times. In her role as the group’s VP of broadcast technology, she has demonstrated an ability to make tough decisions and rally her team behind implementing a new plan.

Former Today co-host Tamron Hall is officially heading to daytime TV. Disney ABC has cleared the new syndicated daytime talk show hosted by Hall on the ABC Owned Television Stations Group for fall 2019. The project had been in development at Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer & International for the past couple of months.